Kameyama Yoshiharu was born to a relatively affluent family in Nakatsugawa, a town under the jurisdiction of the Owari Domain. Little is known of Kameyama's early life. At some point, he developed an interest in classical studies and joined the burgeoning kokugaku movement.
Kameyama collaborated with fellow kokugaku scholar Ichioka Shigemasa [ja] in the local publication of Hirata Atsutane's treatise on supernatural phenomena "A New Theory on Demons and Spirits" (鬼神新論, Kishin shinron). The two carved the printing blocks by hand out of Japanese cherry wood blanks.[1] In 1864, he joined the forces of the Tengutō under the leadership of Takeda Kōunsai and Yamakuni Hyōbu.[1][2] Within the Tengutō, Kameyama was assigned to duties as a logistics officer overseeing the warriors' luggage and personal cargo (小荷駄奉行, konida bugyō). After the Battle of Wada Pass, Kameyama was entrusted with the severed head of 17-year-old Yokota Mototsuna [ja],[1] who killed himself after being mortally wounded by an arquebus bullet. Kameyama turned over Yokota Mototsuna's head to Ichioka Shigemasa and Hazama Hidenori, the two of whom later discreetly buried it in the Ichioka family cemetery to prevent it from being captured by Shogunate headhunters for identification, a practice known as kubi-jikken. After the Tengutō warriors were finally captured in the lands of the Tsuruga Domain, Kameyama was executed along with nearly all the others.[1] Some accounts allege that Tanuma Okitaka, commander of the intercepting forces, deceived the rebels by promising leniency and a stay of execution if they surrendered.[3]
Legacy
In his 1929 epic historical novel Before the Dawn, Shimazaki Tōson records a poem presented by Kameyama to the family of his father Shimazaki Masaki, another kokugaku student and close friend of Ichioka Shigemasa:[2]
Though we passed through a hail of arrows and bullets, we could not advance beyond the highlands of Koma. Instead, we — who beheld in the mountain fastnesses red autumn leaves intense as the Yamato brocades of Shikishima — carved out a path to service through the valleys of Iida, where ripe ears of grain shine. How good it must be to dwell deep in these mountains, untouched by the troubles of this world. We who have no home in this world must make our grass-pillows[a] with the wild boars. May brave men more numerous than the spirits themselves serve as shields for our divine lord! We who came over the endless peaks of the Kiso Mountains will become bones in the grass beside our lord.
—Kameyama Yoshiharu (1864)
—Translation
Notes
^Grass-pillows is an example of makurakotoba, figures of speech used in a type of classical Japanese poetry. This one, kusamakura, derives from 旅 (tabi, "journey"), 結ぶ (musubu, "to bind"), (kari "temporary"), and 露 (tsuyu, "dew").[4]